Rexhep Rexhepi, 34, Wins Watchmaking's Top Prize for Chronograph Flyback

Rexhep Rexhepi has won the Aiguille d'Or, watchmaking's most prestigious award, for his Chronograph Flyback — the first chronograph and first major complication built entirely around his own in-house calibre. He is 34 years old.

The prize was announced at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG), the annual Geneva awards ceremony often called "The Oscars of the Watch World," where the world's watch media gathered under the lights on a cold Geneva night. Rexhepi, an independent Geneva-based watchmaker and Patek Philippe alum who counts F.P. Journe as his enduring inspiration, took the top honour against entries from horological heavyweights.

The winning watch, the RRCHF, is a manually wound, integrated flyback chronograph (a complication that lets you restart timing without stopping first) comprising 320 components. Its architecture includes a column wheel, lateral clutch, instantaneous jumping minute counter and a 72-hour power reserve.

That's an increasingly difficult chronograph architecture, and it packs an impressive amount of traditional watchmaking into a relatively compact 38.8mm frame. The decoration list reads like a traditional finishing catalogue: anglage, black polishing, perlage, Côtes de Genève, hand engraving and individually bevelled wheels, with the mainplate and bridges made from German silver. As the source puts it, it's "the sort of movement that makes the phrase 'caseback view' feel slightly inadequate."

The platinum case gets a double-stepped bezel, sharply angled lugs and similarly sculpted pushers, with classic proportions. The version submitted to the GPHG carries a storm-blue Grand Feu enamel dial with smoked sapphire counters — a rather understated finish for a piece this complicated.

What does the win tell us about the judging?

The GPHG jury, it seems, rewards intricacy over eccentricity. You only have to look at last year's winner, the Breguet Classique Souscription 2025, to see the pattern. The RRCHF, restrained in its storm-blue dress, fits that mould exactly.

The price sits at CHF 150,000 (around AU$266,000) — hardly an impulse purchase. But then again, this is a Rexhep Rexhepi piece, from the Geneva maker we've been calling a watchmaker to watch since 2023.

In the years since, Rexhepi built his reputation around an almost old-fashioned obsession with proportion, hand finishing, mechanical integrity, and doing an unreasonable amount of work himself. That profile — a young independent chasing old-school craft — is precisely what the GPHG's top prize has now validated.

The Chronograph Flyback is perhaps Rexhepi's most complete offering yet, bringing one of watchmaking's most demanding complications into a package that is, in the source's words, "remarkably compact, remarkably restrained and, now, officially the finest watch of the year."

What does this change for collectors?

For buyers already priced out of Rexhepi's small production runs, an Aiguille d'Or will only tighten supply and sharpen demand for a maker whose output depends largely on his own hands. For the wider industry, the award confirms that the GPHG's centre of gravity still sits with traditional, hand-finished craft — and that a 34-year-old independent can beat the majors at their own game.

The Aiguille d'Or and Watch of the Week in just 48 hours, as our voting procedure was effectively outsourced to a body with just a touch more repute. Rexhep will be thrilled.